Essence of Trappist Monasticism

The Chinese have a traditional form of seasonal decoration called a Dui Lian (对联). They are red strips of paper that go on the outside of your door at the top and on the sides. Sort of like putting the passover blood on the lintel and two side posts. Then on the strips of paper are written seasonally relevant poetry in calligraphy. A monk at the monastery taught me a Dui Lian to capture the essence of Trappist Monasticism. He wrote it down for me, and I reproduce it here without explanation. Try just to feel the gestalt sensation of an ancient monk trying to teach his understudy the essence of his art in a concise way using Latin verse (since this was also conducted in my 2nd language).

　坚弥爱信

恒　　　　读

徒　　　　祷

忠　　　　工

贫　　　　谦

贞　　　　隐

简　　　　融

严　　　　静

A Retreat In Taiwan, Part 1

On October 2, through a combination of boat, plane, and car, I traveled to a Trappist monastery in a village called Shuili, in a township also called Shuili, in the county of Nantou, in the country of Taiwan. The monastery was located about an hour by foot up a mountain. There were only three resident monks, all of them priests: the current superior Father Paul and two aged former superiors Fathers Raphael and Francis. I stayed for five nights and had the opportunity to partly participate in their strictly regimented lifestyle that involved among other things rising at 3:30 a.m., retiring at 8 p.m., daily Mass at 6:30 a.m., and corporate prayer six times per day. (Although I set my alarm clock for 3:30 a.m. with great earnestness, each time that it arrived, I could not find within me the passion for 3:45 a.m. corporate prayer requisite to mobilize my slothful body. Thus, the earliest round of corporate prayer to which I could ever make it was the 6 a.m. round.)

Since Vatican II Trappist monks no longer observe a vow of silence; nevertheless, the monks were generally taciturn. This was frustrating initially since I am a highly relational person. Clearly, I am not called to a contemplative lifestyle. I asked for a directed retreat. I had wanted to be able to confide my hopes, dreams, visions, goals, and frustrations with a priest and receive wise counsel how to proceed. Unfortunately, Father Raphael was unpracticed in the art of active listening. Each day when he arrived at 8:30 a.m. to give me direction, he gave an impassioned monologue with his eyes closed, instinctively knowing when an hour had passed and promptly leaving at 9:30 a.m. I never had a chance to speak more than twenty words. It almost seemed that his hour with me was a release valve for his pent-up need to talk, and he had no capacity to listen. This was also frustrating.

Father Paul was very fascinating. During corporate prayers his facial expression was so hard to interpret. If it had been on my face, it would have indicated boredom, but I am not convinced it had the same meaning on his face. He led the corporate prayers like a parliamentarian, with a timer to guarantee that each devotion was exactly the prescribed length. When he spoke with me, he never once looked me in the eyes. When he delivered my meals to me, the interaction lacked the greeting and leave-taking civilities that I had taken for granted that everyone used, and I realized that phatic communication in fact functions to lubricate interaction. I mentioned in passing that I planned to go to Sun Moon Lake one day, and he volunteered to take me. I could not quite visualize what it would look like to do something touristic with someone whom I had not yet seen smile, but I agreed.

Father Paul and I set out together at 10 a.m. He blankly asked if I wanted to see some ethnic dancing, to which I responded in the affirmative. We had polite conversation while he drove me to the lake. We stopped at several different places for different views of the lake. Being a very food-centric person, I kept asking myself, "I wonder what we will do for lunch. I hope this is not a fast day. Has he been to a restaurant before?" At last he interrupted my internal debate and said, "Let's go to Starbucks for lunch." This surprised me on a couple accounts:

1. Even in America, I would not eat at Starbucks because the price of a sandwich is high relative to its size. I assumed a vow of poverty would not allow eating at Starbucks.
   
2. Although I consider coffee to be a near necessity, I still consider Starbucks coffee to be a luxury. I assumed a vow of poverty would not allow drinking Starbucks coffee.

Through this one lunch, I began to see that Father Paul was human too. I asked him questions like, "Does following the same routine every day ever start to feel boring or monotonous?" He answered, "Yes." I followed up with, "So how do you handle it?" He followed his pattern of interpreting my every you as a plural "you monks" and said, "We talk to our superior." I tried again to elicit a personal answer to which he responded with the results of a personality inventory, said that he is not emotional, is well-suited to a contemplative life, and does not have those types of feelings.

The next thing that happened really helped me to see his humanity. In follow up to my response about my wanting to see some ethnic dancing, he took me to an "aboriginal village". I was very surprised how much the entrance fee was, but I did not think about it any more. As we walked around, I kept thinking that this was an odd place. I had expected to see at least a reconstructed but functioning aboriginal Taiwanese village. Instead, I saw a reconstruction of a British earl's house and garden and fountain in one place. Then an area with stocks and totem poles and quasi-American Indian stuff. Then he pointed to a building and said, "Let's go in there." I followed him and got in a little boat, expecting it to take me to the aboriginal village. As we slowly went along, the man-made scenery was very early American West. The ride ended with a hide speed drop resulting in a huge splash of water. It was a water ride, not a boat ride to an aboriginal village.

Afterward, he kept saying like a kid who tasted candy for the first time, "That was very exciting." Then he took me to another building, where I sat in another seat that turned out to be a roller coaster. It finally dawned on me that we were in a "Aboriginal" theme park. I could not believe how dense I had been. I just so did not have a category for riding a roller coaster with a monk in a theme park that it blocked me from realizing where I was. The total absence of lines did not help. At Six Flag Great America, you sometimes wait in line >45 minutes for a single ride. It was a rainy day, few people, no lines, no loud music, and both "rides" so far had been indoors so my senses did not have the data to interpret. After the roller coaster, my eyes were opened and I could see the other rides and games and other trappings of a theme park.

Eventually, we took a cable car to the top of a mountain where there were nine imitation tribal villages, and we watched a performance of the courtship dances of a particular tribe. Then we headed back to the monastery, where Father Paul put his robes back on, and we headed off to Vespers. The other monks probably thought we just went and serenely looked at the natural scenery of the Sun Moon Lake, but I knew that I had ridden a roller coaster with this monk.

Breakthrough

The following is a letter I sent to my nephew a couple weeks ago. It captured my thoughts so well that I chose to reproduce it here for everyone's benefit:


Josh, do you know what happened to me two weeks ago? I came home. I don't know how it happened, but I went on a very distant journey that left my soul in deprivation. I remember distinctly my gratitude, passion, hope, and confidence in 1996 when I meditated daily on Dad's sovereign grace. My email address at that time said it all calvinist5pt@juno.com  

But somehow I stopped meditating on His sovereign grace. I am sure that my environment contributed. Sovereign grace is no emphasis of the Vineyard. If during the last 13 years you asked me my theoretical doctrinal position, I would have responded that I was a Calvinist, but it had stopped being a live-giving truth and become a long undiscussed academic question. And then I came to China where thoughts of survival completely replaced meditations of sovereign grace.

About a month ago, my soul was in very, very bad shape. I said, "The message of the good news is not good news because it all still falls back on my meeting the condition of persevering faith, which I can no longer produce." I read the epistles over and over and wanted to believe that they offered something substantial in which to hope. But my eyes had become veiled to the effectuality of the redemption. Using imagery Piper used in sermon I listened to after the fact, my experience of salvation had become fragile because it depended upon my continuing to meet the condition of faith, and there was nothing in which to have faith since the message offered no good news. I am failing to capture it verbally, but it was basically a vicious cycle.

On a Sunday a brother Nathan discerned my frame and asked if I wanted to talk. He asked me to tell him the story of my conversion. Then he asked who was the initiator in the story. I responded "myself", and then he said that my answer showed that I was full of pride. Then out of no where, he started preaching sovereign grace to me. I do not know if you can probably grasp my shock: No one talks about sovereign grace here. I had not interacted with the concept in years. I mean, it was so removed from my consciousness that I had just responded that I was the initiator in my own conversion.

The HS used that conversation to ignite a spark in the darkness. But I could still only fumble around for several days since I did not even remember how to fan the spark. Using Milton Vincent, I preached to myself, but the spark kept dangerously fading and then reviving. I was in and out of the darkness of confusion for days. The next Friday night another brother Charlie spoke the words to equip me. He said that he listened to sermons almost every day. At first, I could not grasp what he was saying since I equated sermons with the epitome of boredom and could not imagine a situation where I would voluntarily subject myself to listening to a sermon except due to social pressure.

But the words stuck with me, and the next morning, I saw them for what they were: the means of grace to fan the spark. I listened to two hours of Piper and then worshiped with the CD you sent for another hour. I had a breakthrough. I could see hope again. I could see that it did not depend upon myself again. I could believe that the redemption was eternally and really efficacious. I could rejoice in the message again because I could see good news in it. It no longer was just a potential redemption whose actualization depended upon this broken man. The darkness lifted. I came home. I returned to my Reformation roots. I did not even know that I had left, but I am so glad to be home now.

I took the Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholic feeds out of my RSS reader. I don't need to scavange there since I am home again and there is abundant food here. I don't have to starve anymore. Praise Daddy.

The photographic evidence

Here are the photos from my time of quarantine: http://picasaweb.google.com/HaoBole/QuarantinedInXiamen

Freedom

I remembered how when Paul and Silas were in jail in Acts 16, they sang praises to God. And then God sent an earthquake that broke open the jail. I thought I would try. No earthquake.

But about 5 p.m. on the June 12, a nurse buzzed my room and said I could go. I asked about what paperwork I would need to complete, and she said that she would put a certificate in the compartment for passing food to me. No further commentary.

This struck me as very odd. It felt like again like the situation from Acts 16:

But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, "Let those men go." And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, "The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace." But Paul said to them, "They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out."

I thought, I have been unjustly accused of carrying the swine flu. Before I had a chance to exchange dollars for RMB and visit and ATM machine, I was forcibly abducted to somewhere on the mainland where I had never been before. And it is almost dark. I called the nurse back and said that I needed to be escorted back to a known location on the island. She said, "Oh, just take a taxi." And I stood my ground and insisted that taking a taxi from the mainland to my home on the island would be prohibitively expensive. Well, it became a test of wills. 1 1/2 later she called back and said that if I would just leave, an ambulance would escort wherever I wanted to go.

Well, then I tried to leave. You have to understand that an isolation ward is locked. I could not get out, and no one would help me. I found the front desk of the ward, and they had this mortified look like, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I cannot get out." They waved their hands for me to go, and I just wandered around pounding and on and shaking locked doors. After a half hour of waiting, a security guard appeared and with great effort managed to unlock the door. Then he demanded to my certificate, and he escorted me through another very scary ward, and we rode down the biohazard waste elevator. I nearly started pyschologically dissociating. When I finally reached the ground floor, I found the ambulance waiting for me. I was so thankful for that ambulance. I had no idea where I was I. I did not start recognizing the road until 5 minutes before he dropped me off.

In a subsequent blog entry, I will put the photos that I took.

Quarantined, Part 2

A doctor visited me yesterday about 7 p.m. I was very happy to have a visitor. She said that my throat culture came back negative, but that since I came from the US, I needed to have two consecutive negative throat cultures. So she took another one, remarking that my throat was hyperemic (I did not know the Chinese word either, but fortunately my computer has a Chinese-English dictionary) and I needed to drink more water. She also said that it was not up to her when I could be set free. It was up to some government agency whose name I could not catch.

I find it ironic that this is the second time a doctor told me to drink more water, but I literally have to beg the nurses to bring me water. Remember that one cannot drink tap water in China, so I have to rely on outside help to give me potable water.

Given that it took about 30 hours for the results of the last sample to come back, I don't anticipate getting free until Saturday morning at the earliest.

Quarantined in Xiamen

I must share a bit about my return trip to China. The story began in Chicago, where my flight to Los Angeles was delayed 1 1/2 hours. When I finally reached Los Angeles, my next flight had already boarded, and I was not quite sure how to find it. It was not just at another gate; it was in a different terminal. I frantically searched and ran to the other terminal and went through security again. As I was running to the gate, I could hear the announcement: "Would the following seven people immediately board the plane: ... Philip Hallstrom ... The door is ready to close." I needed to poop, but dare not stop at the toilet. I was dreadfully thirsty from racing, but dare not stop to buy water. I reached the gate and boarded in asthma attack. The remainder of that flight was uneventful.

I arrived in Hong Kong at 5 a.m., passed the Swine flu checkpoint, and braced for a four-hour layover. I exchanged some money and ate breakfast at Popeye's Chicken, which advertised some Halal-certified selections. Right before boarding, I splurged on my last gourmet coffee for a long time. On the plane, they served me a second breakfast. I looked at the pork sausage and cheese sandwich, and immediately discerned that it was not the kosher meal that I had pre-ordered. I reported this to the stewardess and after several minutes, they found my special meal. I must say that this was the best Kosher meals I've ever had. Go Dragon Air! What I don't understand is the reason that Cathay Pacific's Kosher meal was so lackluster. They are owned by the same company.

Upon arrival in Xiamen, the stewardess announced that they would be doing the Swine flu checks on the plane instead of in the terminal like in Hong Kong. The officials boarded the plane, visited each passenger, and touched a instrument to our foreheads. When she touched my forehead, a solemn look came over her face. Then she touched it again, and there was no improvement. She asked me to stick a thermometer in my armpit and went on to assess other passengers. She came back, saw my reading, and went to confer with some other officials. When she came back, she demanded my passport and travel papers and ordered me to follow her. I slowly exited the plane while all the other passengers looked upon me like a Jewish leper.

She took me to a room where officials repeatedly interrogated me about my itinerary and my symptoms. I repeatedly recounted all the places I had been in the US. I repeatedly reported that I was only a little hot. They looked at my throat and became more agitated. They took a throat culture and then told me that I needed to go to the hospital. My friends Jordan and Eveline had come to the airport to pick me up. I contacted Jordan and told him that an official would be delivering my suitcases to him and could he help me by taking them home for me. When the official returned, she said that when she took my luggage through customs, the customs agent had found an entire suitcase full of theological books. I deflected as best I could by saying that it was actually a mix of theological and psychological books, and it is because I have an interest in those topics. I still do not know what became of my books.

Anyways, other travelers of questionable health came and went. This other girl Tammy and I were the only ones they decided to quarantine. Tammy was an American-born Chinese, but she could only speak Cantonese, not Mandarin. I ended up translating for her. Everyone was perplexed why she could not speak Mandarin, but I, a white guy, could. We waited a desparately long time until finally an ambulance arrived and escorted us to a hospital outside the island. They EMTs were dressed in gear like out of the movie Outbreak.

We were locked in separate quarantine rooms. The room was relatively comfortable except for being quite hot and there not being any windows to get circulation. It had a little door that opened into a chamber where people would leave food for me to pick up.

Another decked out doctor visited me and took another throat culture. He said that I could get out when I met both of two conditions: 1) My body temperature was normal and 2) My throat culture came back negative. A nurse asked me what I would want to eat for supper. I replied that I did not like pork, so could I just get green vegetables. She said that would be fine. When dinner arrived, it was pig intestine soup plus pig ... I cannot even identify the part of the body. I mean, if I am suspected of swine flu, is it too much to ask not to give me swine to eat? I ate it anyway.

My mobile phone had no money on it, so I could not make any calls or send text messages, but I could receive calls. Jordan called me, and I asked him to put some money into my account, which he did and for which I am very thankful. Not having a phone would have been hard. Over the course of the afternoon and evening, several friends from the Bridge sent text messages expressing their concern.

The hospital did have wireless internet, but it required an account with China Telecom, which I did not have. I contacted Jordan, and he let me use his account, and so I got online and was able to send my family an email to report my situation. I am so thankful that the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Oak Park gave me a laptop computer three days before I left the US. Being in quaratine without a computer would have been much harder.

They slipped me a piece of paper advising me of my right to be visited by a US consul. I declined the right since I fully believe that this is a false alarm. Every couple hours I took my temperature and eventually the fever broke. The throat culture was outsourced to another location, and the report had not yet come back, so I had to spend the night. Quite jet lagged, I went to bed at 7:30 p.m.

When I woke up on the morning of June 11, I really wanted to take a shower. Remember that the morning of June 8 was the last time I showered: I was ripe. The odd thing is that the bathroom did not even have hand soap. This struck me as really odd considering that I am trying to fight an infectious disease. Breakfast came: congee, breakfast cake, hardboiled egg, and milk. Eventually, a nurse offered to give me hand soap, a towel, and some hospital clothes. So I joyfully showered at 10 a.m.

It is now 5:14 p.m. I asked the nurse, and she said that my report has not come back. From reading the news, I see that it can take 3 days to process a throat culture. I guess the labs are overrun with samples. The doctor has not even visited me today since other people are much more severe than I. Note: I am not severe; I don't even have a fever any more. I just cannot get the results of my test back to prove that I am fine.

I will update this blog more later when there is something more to say.

A Coming Together

Introduction

Last week my brain had a coming together. I was finally able to see the truth and co-applicability of three things that over the past year had struck me as odd yet potent. I will share these below.

Lust Inflicts Injury That Needs Healing

Last year I started seeing a Christian counselor. He prescribed for me a weekly checklist of disciplines that I was to observe. This was a negotiated checklist: if I felt that his suggestion was beyond my then-current level of healing, I could reject it. One thing that he suggested was this: if I lusted, I should send him an email reporting this so that he can pray for the healing of the self-injury that occurred. At the time I considered this to be a very odd discipline for two reasons:

1. It presupposed that lust was discrete. In other words, it presupposed that there was a definitive boundary between sexual temptation and lust, such that I could in fact know whether I crossed it. At the time, all the motions in my soul seemed like the unbroken flow of a river with no recognizable national boundary, so I resisted this discipline. In the end after he quantified lust, I accepted the discipline: if I looked at someone with sexual desire or sexually fantasized about someone in excess of three seconds, that counted as lust.
2. It suggested that there was something beyond forgiveness that I needed after lusting, namely, healing of an objective, specific wound. This struck me as very odd--especially since it was he who would pray for the healing of that wound. I mean, if I can pray for my own forgiveness, I certainly can pray for my own healing. In retrospect, his request was quite wise. Since I did not yet believe that each incidence of lust discretely and objectively wounds my soul, I hardly could pray with faith for the healing of this wound. But he wanted to make sure that it got healed regardless of the state of my faith, so he took it on himself to pray for it.

I do not actually recall our discussing this mysterious wound, but the question certainly stuck in my mind, and I have continued ruminating on it for months after ceasing to see that counselor. Last week, I finally grasped the concept. It is implied by 1 Peter 2:11: Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. A passion (lust) of the flesh wages war against my soul; thus, if I permit one, it will inflict an injury on my soul. 1 Corinthians 7:9 and Romans 1:27 both metaphorically compare passion to fire, so a burn would be an apt description of this wound. This realization also helped to firm up the notion of lust's discreteness. If lust causes a burn and I have a lust burn, this implies that I in fact lusted.

Lust Surrenders Ground to Satan That Needs to Be Retaken

Last month I met with a different counselor for two sessions. He led me in prayer concerning a number of experiences in my life. For each experience, one of the things that he asked me to pray was I ask you, Lord Jesus, to take back ground given to the enemy through X and I yield that ground to Your control. When he led me in the prayers, I followed along, but I made a mental that I needed to meditate on this expression later. It struck me as quite analogous to the wounding mentioned above and again implied that there was something beyond forgiveness that I needed.

Last week I finally grasped the concept. Ephesians 4:26-27 says: Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. This word translated opportunity means place, any portion or space marked off, as it were from surrounding space. In other words, through sin we give ground to the devil. And if we merely ask God for forgiveness, it is possible that we will merely be forgiven and not recover the lost ground. I don't pretend to know what it actually means that the devil possesses ground in my soul, but I hypothesize that it at least entails this: Our conscience is desensitized a degree and thus repeating the sin that caused the ground-loss will be one degree easier.

Strategic Prayer

A while back Amy gave a teaching on being strategic in spiritual warfare. The gist was as follows: The powers of darkness know my weaknesses, have devised a personalized strategy to destroy me, and are actively trying to implement that strategy. Thus, it should not come as a surprise to me that the temptations I experience seem fine-tuned to trip me up with high degree of effectiveness. Furthermore, since their goal is not just my one-time failure but my destruction, it is wise to intentionally prepare a counter-strategy. When I heard her, I was reminded of 2 Corinthians 2:10-11, Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs. Unfortunately, I just could not envision what such a counter-strategy might look like.

Well, last month when I met with the second counselor, he proposed a pattern for combating lies that I believe. The strategy was very good, but I will just focus on the last step here: For each lie X that I am strategizing to overcome, I select a specific prayer target (PT), i.e., a specific person or group for whom to pray. Then when I am being tempted to believe lie X, I pray the following for the associated PT: I pray that you use PT to bring great destruction to Satan's kingdom. He explained that if I do this consistently, the Evil One will notice that every time he tempts me to believe lie X, his kingdom experiences great destruction at the hands of PT. As a result, he will back off tempting me to believe lie X. This struck me as a very valuable tool.

The Application

As I was driving in the car last week, all three of these came into my mind, and I envisioned a new better-rounded weapon for battling lust. This is the program:

1. Heal existing wounds and take back already lost ground. I listed every person for whom I had lusted at some time in the past. The I confessed the sin, asked God to heal me of the injury, asked God to take back the ground that I had lost, and then asked God to use that person to bring great destruction to Satan's kingdom. This took a significant block of time. When I could not think of any more people, I asked the Holy Spirit to bring more people to mind, which He did. This was important because I want to have a truly clean start.
2. Having taken care of the past, now use the concept in the present. When I am tempted to lust for X, I out loud ask God to use X to bring great destruction to Satan's kingdom. I keep praying along these lines until the temptation recedes.
3. If I fail again and lust in the future, I repeat step one for that person.

I feel much more hopeful than I have a in a long while because I feel empowered now to do battle. I would be interested to know if this post was useful to anyone else.

Fruits of the May 2009 Retreat

On May 1 - 3, 2009, I attended the semi-annual Red Tag retreat. One of the themes was God's four omni's: omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnibeneficence. Below I will try to share some insights with which I came away.

I basically have a mental block on the fourth omni (omnibeneficence) that has become the cords that bind me, and they were relentlessly tight all day Friday night through Saturday afternoon. During the free time Saturday afternoon, my friend Doreen proactively sought me out for some reconciliation issues. Then she began to run into the same mental block in me that made it impossible for me either to receive God's love or accept myself. She was inspired to ask some questions. Then when I could not answer a question, she instructed me to ask God right then and there and then waited until I heard an answer. I saw three pictures over the course of that meeting, and then another one Sunday afternoon. I will describe them below:

1. She asked me what God felt when the sperm penetrated the egg that would develop into me. The only thing I could think was that He was disappointed that a different sperm had not penetrated and created a different person. So she told me to ask Him, which I trepidly did. I saw a picture of a large deer with a huge rack of antlers rapidly jumping to the top of a mountain (Songs 2:8-9). When he reached it, he lifted his head and wave his antlers wildly. I instinctively knew that he was excited and proud because his fawn had just been born, and I felt the excitement and pride of God for me.
2. Then I shared the reason I was so afraid of being alone. God is omnipresent, but I feel that He does not like me. The result is a God who is rather peeved that He cannot help being in the same space as me. This has made it very hard to be alone because I cannot get the picture out of my mind of His disgust at being trapped with me. Doreen told me to ask God what He felt next time I was alone with him. I told her that that was not reasonable since my anxiety level at that point is already so high that I most likely would not be able to hear. So she told me to ask him right there what He felt when I was alone with Him. I saw a picture of a boy and his dad together going through a maze made out of tall stacks of hay. I instinctively knew that the father already knew the path to the end, so his purpose was not to find the exit but rather to enjoy the time together with his son. I saw the little boy run ahead several times, get lost, and then run back to his dad to ask which way to go. His dad would always answer, "Let's try this way." I felt God's pleasure at being alone with me.
   
3. I shared with Doreen that I long have had a picture in my mind of my sister getting injured as a child and running to my dad for comfort. He backed away from her as from one with leprosy and then called to my mom, "Janet, your daughter needs you." This picture symbolized what God felt toward me--disgust at my weakness and brokenness. As I prayed, I saw a wolf spider, carrying its children on its back (it looked like this) I instinctively knew that the spider enjoyed the closeness and physical contact with its children and was draw to them because of their weakness and inability to care for themself.
4. Something with which I have long struggled is God's seeming general unavailability when I seek him. While the red tags were sharing their testimonies on Sunday afternoon, I spontaneously saw a fourth picture. It was of a stalagmite and its accompanying stalactite. I remembered that they there were formed by water dripping down from the ceiling, first leaving a calcium deposit on top and then on the bottom. I instinctively knew the interpretation: 1) Even my capacity to reach up to God (the upward-reaching stalagmite) has its source first in grace coming down to me (the water dropping from the ceiling) and 2) At the same time that I am reaching out to God (stalagmite), God is simultaneously reaching out to me (stalactite), and in fact, he reaches out first (the drop leaves calcium on the top first and then the bottom).

An Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living

Introduction

What is today’s date? Based on the time of year and the precedent that Lipu set in January of this year, what topic would I naturally want to talk about today? Right. Personal Growth Plans or Goal setting or New Years Resolutions. So what topic do you think I will talk about today? Wrong. We will talk about none of them. Lipu’s strength is looking forward, planning for the future, and encouraging others to do the same. That is not my strength. If I tried that topic, everyone would fall asleep within 5 minutes. My strengths are looking backward and finding faults, so today we will talk about self-examination. And what better day than the last day of a year to evaluate to do a post-mortem on our lives in 2008. My plan is as follows:

1. Opening thoughts
   
2. Types types of self-examination
   
1. Reactive
2. Proactive
3. The benefits of self-examination
   
4. When to practice self-examination
   
5. What standard to use in self-examination
   

Opening Thoughts

I want to start off with a quote that got me started thinking about self-examination:

Even the pagan philosophers were wiser than this generation. They knew that an unexamined life was not worth living. ‘Know thyself’ is the famous dictum of Socrates. (Richard Foster)

When I read that sentence, I thought to myself, “Well, at our company we insist that everything goes through QA to make sure that it is of high quality. Isn’t my own life more valuable than software? So why don’t I spend any time evaluating the quality of it?”

The answer is 1) I am lazy and 2) I don’t know how to do QA on my life. So I spent some time researching what earlier generations said about self-examination in order to find a motive and a method, and I will share with you my results now.

Types of Self-Examination

There are basically two types of self-examination: reactive and proactive. I define reactive self-examination as self-examination triggered by a negative event. I define proactive self-examination as self-examination to support the pursuit of a goal or to preemptive a threat. Let’s look at these two types more closely.

Reactive Self-Examination

There are many types of negative events that can trigger self-examination. Classical Literature illustrates several such negative events, often in the form of an idiom. First, 闭门思愆 illustrates a personal failure. In The Three Kingdoms an official recognized his shortcomings and said the following:

《三国志·蜀志·来敏传》“坐事去职”裴松之注引《诸葛亮集》：“自谓能以敦厉薄俗，帅之以义。今既不能，表退职，使闭门思愆。”

I am of the opinion that it is my duty to use a strict manner when instructing others, not to pay attention to debates over common customs, and to use a heart of benevolence, righteousness, and justice to lead them. Since I cannot so lead, I resign this position in order to earnestly reflect and critically examine myself.

Second, 闭阁思过 illustrates an event that is not own’s failure but rather the failure of his associate, implying a sense of responsibility for those in one’s sphere of influence. Hàn History reports this about an official named Yángshòu upon hearing about the behavior of his two brother:

《汉书·韩延寿传》：“民有昆弟相与讼田自言，延寿大伤之……是日移病不听事，因入卧传舍，闭阁思过，一县莫知所为。”

There were two brothers who went to court because of a land dispute. When Yángshòu heard this, he was deeply grieved. That day instead of hearing cases, he merely shut himself up in his room and pondered his mistakes. The whole county did not know what he was doing.

Third, 清夜扪心 illustrates self-examination is in response to other’s criticisms of oneself:

唐·白居易《和梦游春》诗：“扪心无愧畏，腾口有谤讟。”

Even though others continuously debate my actions, when I examine my conscience, I find nothing of which to be afraid or ashamed.

Fourth, Kǒngzǐ taught self-examination in response to another’s failures:

《论语4：17》“子曰：‘见贤思齐焉；见不贤而内自省也。’”

When you meet a man of virtue, learn from him. When you meet a man without virtue, examine yourself to see if you have the same defects as he has.

The fifth example is that of self-examination in response to chronic personal setbacks:

Now, therefore, thus says the Yahweh of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the Yahweh of hosts: Consider your ways.” (Haggai 1:5-7)

现在万军之耶和华如此说：“你们要省察自己的行为。你们撒的种多，收的却少；你们吃，却不得饱；喝，却不得足；穿衣服，却不得暖；得工钱的，将工钱装在破漏的囊中。”万军之耶和华如此说：“你们要省察自己的行为。”

So, reactive self-examination is self-examination in response to negative events, including, personal failure, the failure of those in one’s sphere of influence, other people’s criticism of you, failure of a person you meet, and chronic personal setbacks.

Proactive Self-Examination

Proactive self-examination is when we examine ourselves not in response to a negative event but in order to reach a goal or preempt a negative event. The origin of the idiom 三省吾身 illustrates this. Zēngzǐ had some clear goals that he considered so urgent that he said the following:

《论语1：4》“曾子曰：‘吾日三省吾身─为人谋而不忠乎？与朋友交而不信乎？传不习乎？’”

“Every day I examine myself once and again: Have I tried my utmost to help others? Have I been honest to my friends? Have I diligently reviewed the instructions from the Master?”

The Bible is full of encouragements to examine oneself. Even if you are not a Christian, you might be able to absorb the importance that it places on it. Paul advised Christians to examine themselves carefully before taking Communion in order to prevent death:

Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. (1 Corinthians 11:28-30)

人应当自己省察，然后吃这饼、喝这杯。因为人吃喝，若不分辨是主的身体，就是吃喝自己的罪了。因此，在你们中间有好些软弱的与患病的，死的也不少。（哥林多前书11：28－30）

Jesus advocated self-examination against the threat of self-deception:

“Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness” (Luke 11:35)

所以，你要省察，恐怕你里头的光或者黑暗了。（路加福音11：35）

Paul advocated it against the threat of counterfeit faith:

“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

你们总要自己省察有信心没有，也要自己试验。岂不知，你们若不是可弃绝的，就有耶稣基督在你们心里吗？（哥林多后书13：5）

So, people proactively examine themselves in order to gage their progress toward a goal or to preempt threats.

The Benefits of Self-Examination

In addition to fortifying one’s goal and preempting threats, self-examination has many other benefits as well. The origin of the idiom 内省不疚 illustrates that boldness results from a self-examination turning up no offense:

《论语12：4》“子曰：‘内省不疚，夫何忧何惧？’”

“Can a person with a clear conscience ever have any worries or fears?”

The origin of 内视反听 shows that it is the foundation of a king’s successful reign:

《后汉书·王允传》：“夫内视反听，则忠臣竭诚；宽贤务能，则义士厉节。”

“I critically examine myself and listen to other’s opinions; as a result, the high officials are all loyal to me. With tolerance toward my counselors, I recognize their abilities, encourage them, and cause them to improve continuously.”

Another king reported that it was the foundation of his wisdom:

《史记·商君列传8》：“反听之谓聪，内视之谓明，自胜之谓强。”

“The ability to heed other’s opinions is intelligence, the ability to examine oneself is sagacity, the ability to control oneself is power.”

So, self-examination has the benefits of boldness, success, and wisdom.

When to Practice Self-Examination

The answer to this question depends upon the urgency of one’s goal or threat. We already saw that Zēngzǐ examined himself every day (or maybe three times a day depending on how to translate 三省吾身). One aspect of pro-activity is regularity, that is we choose an interval of time and then we examine ourselves at each completion of that interval. For example, earlier we saw that Christians should examine themselves before taking Communion. Some Christians take Communion once a quarter, some once a month, some once a week. However often, the point is that there is chance for regular self-examination. I personally try to practice some type of nightly self-examination before I go to bed. One Chinese author said this:

明·茅维《闹门神》：“倘清夜扪心，原无芥蒂。”

“When I examine my conscience in the stillness of the night, I find remaining in my heart neither resentment nor grudge toward anyone.”

A verse in the Bible suggests that nightly self-examination is helpful:

“I said, ‘Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart.’ Then my spirit made a diligent search.” (Psalm 77:6)

“我想起我夜间的歌曲，扪心自问，我心里也仔细省察。”（诗篇77：6）

The Standards of Self-Examination

Of course, in order to do pro-active self-examination, we need to have goals to be our standard. In a little bit, we will use our 2008 PGP as a standard. But first let’s talk about the characteristics of a good standard. It needs to be simple and memorable. I think that Zengzi was on to something in his standard above. It is very concise: “为人谋而不忠乎？与朋友交而不信乎？传不习乎？” This is one reason that my 2008 PGP failed: it was so long that I could not keep it in mind. But Zengzi lacked one characteristic: comprehensiveness. He was only concerned with the horizontal dimension, the relationship between people. But I believe that there is another dimension, the vertical dimension, that is, the relationship between myself and God. In the Bible, a person is called righteous person only if he is faithful in both his horizontal and vertical relationships. So I feel that a good standard of should be simple, memorable, and encompass both of these dimensions. Jesus once spoke such a standard:

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)

有一个文士来，听见他们辩论，晓得耶稣回答得好，就问他说：“诫命中哪是第一要紧的呢？”耶稣回答说：“第一要紧的就是说：‘以色列啊，你要听！主我们神是独一的主。你要尽心、尽性、尽意、尽力爱主你的　神。’其次就是说：‘要爱人如己。’再没有比这两条诫命更大的了。”（马可福音12：28－31）

Of course, I fail at this standard each second, but at least I am clear of what standard to use for self-examination.